A Frenchman, who has written a very large book all about birds, says that
if we were not so accustomed to them we should think a bird flying through
the air the most wonderful thing we had ever seen--and I think he is right;
but before we speak of these wonderful and beautiful creatures, let us read
once more the verses in Genesis which tell us of their birthday, beginning
with, "And God said," and ending with, "And the evening and the morning
were the fifth day."
We have been speaking of the living creatures which the waters brought
forth, and now we must think a little of the "winged fowl," which were made
to people the "expansion," and are sometimes called the "fish of the air,"
as the fishes are called the "birds of the ocean."
Of all the happy living things I think none _seem_ so full of joy as the
birds. Their very flight has such buoyancy and gladness in it, and their
songs seem always to be telling of happiness. Did you ever watch the
sea-gulls flashing and darting about, and then floating quietly above your
head, or the swallows in their rapid flight, wheeling round and round, and
think how beautiful a thing it is just to see them on the wing, fluttering,
soaring, floating in that ocean of air which is their home?
[Illustration: A "WINGED FOWL."]
Birds are marked off from all other vertebrate animals by the possession
of feathers. How wonderful is the wing of a bird; spread wide when it is
flying, and folded up like a fan when it is resting, perched upon the
branch of a tree, swaying to and fro in the sunshine.
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